Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

FUTURE INFLUENCE OF RUSSIA.83

of those too long unaccustomed to their use will be weak and powerless. Society will perish for having put its trust in empty words, and then those lying echoes of opinion, the journals, will revel in the overthrow, were it only to have something to relate for one month longer. They will kill society in order to live upon its carcase.

Germany, with its enlightened governments, its good and sensible people, might again lay in Europe the foundations of a defensive aristocracy *, but its governments are not one with its people. The king of Prussia, beeome the mere advanee guard of Russia †, has converted his soldiers into silent and patient revolutionists, instead of having availed himself of their good dispositions to render them the natural defenders of ancient Europe,—that only portion of the earth where rational liberty has hitherto discovered an asylum. In Germany it might yet be possible to allay the storm; in France, England and Spain, we can now do no more than await the thunder-bolt. A return to religious unity would save Europe. But this unity, by what means ean it be restored, by what new miracles will it enforce its elaims on an indifferent and thankless world ; by what authority will it be supported ? This is a seeret with God. The human mind proposes problems, it is the Divine action, that is to say, it is time, whieh must resolve them.

These considerations fill me with painful apprehensions for my own country. When the world, wearied

* Une aristocratie tutélaire. † TL·is was written in June 1839. E 6